


Tell Her to Come Back Home

by Suzelle



Series: Prove Your Body Wrong [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, Genderswap, Hulk-sized baggage, References to Suicide, Rule 63, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-04
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:39:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzelle/pseuds/Suzelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brooke Banner's never taken much stock in the whole "women helping women" thing. But as she stumbles through the days and weeks following the Midtown battle, she begins to wonder if there's something for it after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of my Rule 63 Avengers 'verse, and a follow-up to [Why Are You Full of Rage?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/479277) . Not necessary to have read it first but it does set Brooke's backstory. I am blessed in having not one but three fabulous betas--[Benzaiten (DaughterOfTheWest)](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfTheWest/pseuds/Benzaiten), [Mizbingley](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizbingley) , and [zopyrus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/zopyrus). Thank you all for your feedback and your friendship.
> 
> No Archives warnings apply, but heed the tags, yes?

Of all the strange and unexpected things that have happened to Brooke Banner in the past few days, somehow the most unbelievable of all is the fact that Toni Stark has offered her not only full access to her ten floors of R&D but also a permanent apartment in Stark Tower—protection, a haven, a home if she’d like it. She can’t say that she’s entirely surprised, but it’s still a bit much to process—it’s a sudden change, even for her.  
  
The R&D levels become home quickly enough. She feels like a kid at Christmas, attacking the labs with a joyous zeal and adjusting to the coffee-fueled banter between Toni and JARVIS that punctuates the heavy metal blasting in the background. She’s still not used to life in the rest of the Tower, though, and she wanders around in a cautious sort of daze, tiptoeing especially around Peter Potts. Around him, she can’t help but feel like some stray dog that Toni dragged in, _“oh please oh please can we keep her, I promise she won’t make a mess and smash up the penthouse…again…”_  
  
But five days after Torra takes Loki back to Asgard, she wakes up to find an envelope sitting on her living-room table, her name written on it in neat, precise handwriting. Inside there’s a map of Manhattan with clothing stores and restaurants marked off, a debit card, and a post-it note that reads:  
  
 _“Use it or lose it—P.P.”_  
  
Brooke sighs and smiles to herself, pocketing the note and the card as she heads toward the elevator.  
  
Toni’s nowhere to be found, so Brooke ventures out on her own down towards SoHo, hoping that she’s remembered enough of the city’s layout to not have to use the map Peter’s given her. Though she could easily walk there from the Tower she takes the subway out of her own stubborn defiance, testing, proving to herself that she can now. Grand Central station is still little more than a smoldering ruin in the aftermath of the invasion, but one would hardly know it for the swarms of people ducking in and out between the cleaning crews. The train itself chaotic and crowded, but the Other One merely purrs beneath her chest, almost as if to say, _“That all you can throw at me, sweetheart?”_  
  
Cheeky bastard.  
  
She knows Peter’s marked out various boutiques and shops for her, but she’s drawn to the various street sales up and down Broadway, examines their colorful floor-length skirts in a wondrous curiosity. She buys some more practical clothes from the Gap and Banana Republic (she’s never been a fashionista and doubts she ever will be), but on her way back she stops at the first vendor she passed and buys a purple-and-cream wraparound skirt, with a kitschy beaded necklace to match.    
  
It’s mid-afternoon by the time she returns to Stark Tower, and though she could go back to the lab she decides instead to change into her new purchases, indulging in the newfound notion of leisure time. She wanders up to the penthouse, intending to take advantage of Toni’s flatscreen TV and X-Box, but stops short as she catches a glimpse of herself in the glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows.  
  
She eyes her reflection critically, running her hands slowly over her hips and down the silky fabric of the skirt. In Calcutta she’d started to gain back the weight she’d lost over the years, but she could still stand to steal back another five pounds or so from the Other One. The combination of the skirt and tank top makes her look about ten years younger, which at her age is nothing to complain about. It’s the first time she’s dared to wear a skirt or jewelry in nearly ten years, and she looks herself up and down once more before letting out a slow grin. She twirls once and gives herself a brief, self-satisfied nod. She wouldn’t be rushing towards pencil skirts anytime soon, but this is a start—and a pretty darn good-looking one, at that.  
  
“Belle of the ball, are we?” says a voice from behind her.  
  
Brooke lets out a strangled shriek and whirls around, searching for the source of the voice. She finally spots Hawkeye perched on top of a bookcase in the back corner of the penthouse, sitting crossed-legged and watching Brooke intently.  
  
“Jesus _God_ , Barton,” she gasps, holding her hand to her chest, breathing heavily, “why do they bother to give you the bow when you just can give people heart attacks for sneaking up on them?”  
  
Barton doesn’t answer, but simply eyes Brooke with a look that managed somehow to be both piercing and detached.  
  
“So Fury was right,” she says, her tone curious, “you really do have a handle on this thing, don’t you?”  
  
Brooke raises an eyebrow. “Glad to know Fury thinks so, at least. I don’t think many of your spy friends would be too quick to agree with him on that.”  
  
Barton shrugs. “Be kind of hard to doubt it, after last week. It’s just…another thing to see it in action.”  
  
Brooke walks across the penthouse, mirrors Barton as she perches cross-legged on a bar stool. “So what brings you here, Agent Hawkeye? SHIELD business?"

Barton’s face clouds over. “Getting away from it, actually. Had my de-briefing with SHIELD today, to make sure my mind was officially de-bugged of Tesseract crap.”  
  
Brooke winces.  
  
“Official procedure, standard debriefing, the usual shit” Barton says. “But I…”  
  
“Say no more,” Brooke interrupts as she crosses behind the bar and opens the liquor cabinet. “Pick your poison, Agent.”  
  
Barton raises an eyebrow of her own as she takes Brooke’s place on the barstool. “Stark won’t mind?” she asks.  
  
Brooke gives her a mischievous smile. “Toni told me I’m allowed to take whatever I want from the Tower. I’ve been holding back all week, but I think now’s as good a time as any to start taking advantage of her hospitality, don’t you?”  
  
Barton gives a little smirk of her own and shakes her head. “Whiskey on the rocks, then,” she says, tracing a pattern in the fine layer of construction dust that still coats the penthouse bar.  
  
Brooke pours a glass for Barton and uncorks out a bottle of wine for herself, rolling her eyes at Hawkeye’s look of surprise.  
  
“One glass is not going to bring out the Other One, Agent, never fear,” she says, “I happen to enjoy wine, and I learned moderation long before I started playing with gamma rays.”  
  
Barton snorts. “Wasn’t gonna say a thing, Doc,” she says, “These last few days, I know what it’s like to have people judging your every move. I’m just watching from a distance, here.”  
  
Brooke raises her glass, “To getting out from under SHIELD’s eye,” she says, “at least for a little while.”  
  
“Good riddance for the day,” Barton says, the barest trace of bitterness in her voice. She clinks glasses with Brooke and downs her whiskey in one quick gulp, grimacing slightly as she slams the glass back down onto the bar.  
  
They sit in silence, and Brooke studies Hawkeye subtly, carefully. Out of the six she fought alongside last week she knows Claire Barton the least, having been out of commission when Romanov finally brought her out of Loki’s grasp. She doesn’t appear to be the type who lays her cards out on the table—she’s clearly a woman of few words in mixed company, though the few times Brooke has spoken to her she’s displayed a clipped, acerbic wit that threatens to outpace even Toni’s. Watching her now, though, Brooke notices dark circles under her eyes, and a haggard, haunted look that is all too familiar.  
  
“Can I ask you something, Doctor Banner?” Barton asks as she stares at the ice slowly melting in her glass.  
  
Brooke turns to her, curious. “Shoot.”  
  
“It’s…kind of personal.”  
  
Brooke spreads her hands wide. After the Helicarrier she wonders if anything is ever going to seem “too personal” again.  
  
“Shoot,” she repeats.  
  
“When you change,” she asks slowly, “are you…still you under all of that? Like…” she hesitates, and the rest spills out in a rush. “Are you conscious of what’s happening? Do you remember things while you’re, well…green?”  
  
Brooke takes a long, slow sip of wine before answering. She has a feeling she knows where this is coming from, and where it’s going.  
  
“Have you ever been surfing, Agent Barton?” she says at last, “or swimming in the ocean with really big waves?” Barton nods. “You know how it feels when you slip and get caught under a wave? You’ve got the huge pressure of the surf twisting you, pushing you down, and you need to come up for air but you’re trapped underwater? That’s…that’s what it’s like, when she breaks out. Sometimes I’m aware of what’s going on, in the dimmest sense, but usually it’s just vague sensations, through miles of haze and murk. I don’t remember much, even if I’ve got things under control—Toni had to give me the play-by-play of the battle last week after we all got shawarma.”  
  
Barton snorts. “That must have been interesting,” she says as she pours herself another whisky. She drinks this one more methodically, a calculated sip every ten seconds or so. Brooke wonders if this is a habit or a deliberate rationing.  
  
“So you’re not…you,” Barton says slowly, “When the Other One comes out. You don’t have any control over what you do when the Big Smash breaks through. So why do you feel so guilty?”  
  
Brooke starts. This was not how she’d expected the conversation to be going.  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“Come on,” Barton says, “I saw the look on your face when you apologized to Nikita for going after him. And that was only after a near miss--I know you’ve done worse.”  
  
“That’s different,” Brooke replies, her frowning at the mention of Agent Romanov, “I scared him, and I did it deliberately. And then when the Helicarrier happened, after all of…I owed him an apology for that.”  
  
“No one owes Nikita an apology for anything, least of all you,” Barton says sardonically, “I’m not going to get in the middle of whatever issues the two of you have, but know he…he’s got a lot of his own baggage, he was assigned to you for awhile, but he’s not going to hold that against you. Especially for something that you technically didn’t do.”  
  
“Look, Barton, it’s not as simple as that,” Brooke replies, “It’s not like—” _it’s not like you and Loki._ “It’s not like she’s a completely separate entity. She never goes away—she’s just buried down deep, same way I am when the shoe’s on the other foot. I’ve always had the rage—a parting gift from my family, you could say. All it took was a science experiment gone wrong to personify it and expand the blast radius.”  
  
“But that in itself was something out of your control,” Barton snaps, “I’ve read the file. You couldn’t stop that accident from happening, couldn’t stop what happened to you. So the questions stands, Doc. _Why do you feel so guilty?_ ” Her voice is strained, her face so twisted in grief that Brooke can’t imagine that they’re only talking about the Hulk.  
  
Brooke sighs. She suddenly feels old—old, careworn, and somehow even more bone-tired than she’d felt after waking up in the rubble of that abandoned building post-Helicarrier.  
  
“I don’t,” she says simply. “Not anymore. Guilt…guilt helped to tear me apart, Claire. I don’t know what Romanov’s told you, but…guilt caused me to get low. Lower than I ever want to be again. And if you allow yourself to think that way…you can’t. You recognize what you’ve done, but you’ve got to see, too, that it’s out of your control and it does no one any good to stab yourself with self-pity. You recognize that other people did this to you, made you this way, and you make promises to them. You step up, you find a way out, you _learn_ how to get a handle on your life again…”  
  
She stops, wondering if she’s gone too far. But all she hears is a soft, quiet “ _hmph_ ,” and Barton turns, finally, to meet her gaze.  
  
“And you heal yourself,” Brooke finishes gently, “SHIELD granting you any sort of shore leave anytime soon?”  
  
Barton scoffs. “I could ask the same about you,” she retorts, “Fury’s convinced you’re going to start packing up back to play Noble Doctor in India any day now. Can’t be good for your health, after all the smashing you’ve been up to.”

Brooke shrugs. If she were being perfectly honest, she hasn’t thought much about what she’s going to do now. Grateful as she is for all Toni’s offered her, she still can’t stop herself from instinctively treating this time in Stark Tower as an extended vacation and not much else. She doesn’t know how she feels about staying in Manhattan, a constant reminder of so many things gone wrong. She’s wary, warier than she’d care to admit, of remaining stateside for long. Even as she senses on an intellectual level that the events of the past week have been a gamechanger, her memories of Army’s near-constant pursuit loom large in her mind. At the same time…

“I don’t know yet what I’m going to be doing, Claire. And you can tell Fury that much, if she asks. I’m watching and waiting. We’ll see what happens.”

Barton rolls her eyes.

“Well, as long as you’re ‘watching and waiting,’ I’m gonna be around,” she says, “Don’t think Fury’s putting me on any long-distance missions for awhile yet. So…if you want to get out of your science-cave, get away from Stark…I know a bunch of comedy clubs that do shows around the city. No one in SHIELD’ll go to them, they don’t have much of a sense of humor there, but…”

Brooke smiles faintly.

“I’d like that,” she says, “Seems like it’s something that would be good for the both of us.” 


	2. Chapter 2

_[Claire Barton 14:25pm]: Hey, the reviews I’ve been reading for this show make it look like shit. Want to cut our losses and just do drinks?_  
  
 _[Brooke Banner 14:31pm]: Not a problem…want to go out or come to the Tower?_  
  
 _{Claire Barton 15:07pm]: Tower’s less energy, as long as Stark’s okay with it. We’ll come over around 8?_  
  
 _[Brooke Banner 15:08pm]: We?_  
  
 _[Claire Barton 15:09m]: Romanov’s gonna come too. Things have been pretty quiet here at headquarters, I think he’s bored out of his skull._  
  
“I am not running a home for wayward spies, Banner,” Toni grouses when Brooke shows her the texts, “we work with these people, we don’t play with them.”    
  
“I know, I know,” Brooke replies, “But I promised Barton I’d go to this thing with her, and Romanov…well, she sort of just invited him along.”  
  
“Can Rogers make it out?” Toni asks, “At least that way it’ll be more rounded…”  
  
Brooke sighs. She had thought of that, saw Stella as a better go-between between SHIELD and the two rogue scientists, but no…  
  
“I called, but she’s at some benefit tonight for women in the military,” she answers. “She said she’d try and come late if it ended early and she wasn’t too tired, but we’d be on our own for the beginning at least. I can tell her you’re not okay with it, and we can go out…”    
  
“Nah, it’ll be fine,” Toni says, “Barton’s good people, and I think Romanov is too, if not for the fact that he thinks I’m intolerable.” She smirks in a self-satisfied way at that last bit, and Brooke takes the bait.

“So, what _did_ you to do make him think that?” she asks, curious in spite of herself, “I mean, other than the obvious.”

Dummy lets out an angry chirp, and Toni pats him reassuringly.

“Cool your jets, ace,” she says, before turning back to Brooke. “SHIELD assigned him to me as an undercover agent, back when the arc reactor decided to start pumping poison back into my system. So it…wasn’t the best time in my life, and he was this hot new PA Pete’d scrounged up, so I didn’t see or treat him as anything other than Schwarzenegger-style eye candy. I mean, to be fair, it’s a perfectly legitimate assumption to make, have you _seen_ him with his shirt off?”

“Nope,” Brooke makes a face, “and I truly don’t ever intend to.”

“Your loss,” Toni shrugs, “But yeah. Imagine my surprise when he shows up one day with Fury in SHIELD blues. He pulls off the dumb Russian jock thing real well, but he’s smarter than he looks. Smart enough to have figured out what was wrong with me even before Pete had.” 

Brooke sighs. Machismo _and_ intelligence. Terrific.    
  
At half-past eight Barton and Romanov show up at the penthouse. Toni’s a good hostess for once and pours them all drinks. They all sit in silence at the bar, and Brooke’s reminded viscerally of their trip to the shawarma joint just a couple weeks before. This time it’s different, though—they can’t hide behind the excuse of post-battle exhaustion for the awkward silence. Brooke’s starting to wonder just how long this is going to go on when Barton suggests cards, and Toni pounces on it like an eager cat and pulls out poker chips.  
  
Barton scoffs. “Poker’s the boring man’s game, Stark. What about euchre—we’ve got the right number of people for it.”  
  
“Oooh, I haven’t played that game in years,” Brooke says reminiscently. “And that way we won’t have to worry about trying to find shit to bet on…”  
  
“What is this, some sort of Prohibition-era game only you Midwesterners know?” Toni protests disdainfully. “No betting, next you’re going to tell me there’s no booze either…”  
  
“You’re from the Midwest?” Brooke asks Barton curiously.  
  
“Well, all over, really, but yeah…my sister and I spent our first few years in Iowa,” Barton says. “You?”  
  
“Ohio, born and bred,” Brooke says, “Been sticking to the coasts ever since I went to college, though. Gotta say, I don’t miss it.”  
  
“Except for the straight-edge wuss card games, apparently,” Toni snerks.  
  
“Come on, Stark, give it a shot,” Barton says, “You wanna raise the stakes? I can pull a William Tell on whoever loses a point to me.”  
  
Toni shudders. “Not to say I don’t trust your skills, Katniss, but…I have a thing about people shooting at me. Namely: I shoot back.”  
  
Barton grins evilly. Romanov rolls his eyes.  
  
“Okay, fine,” Toni whines, “But just until the Capsicle gets back. Then it’s movie night.”  
  
Brooke helps Claire to explain the rules, and she and Toni team up against the SHIELD agents. Brooke soon begins to suspect that the two have worked out their own unspoken language, as they win every trick and throw down trump card after trump card. By the time they reach point ten Toni’s steadily swearing at Brooke while pouring herself a third glass of whiskey, and Barton shuffles the cards with what Brooke’s coming to identify as a trademark smirk. She suggests they change up the teams, and Brooke switches to sit across from Agent Romanov.  
  
She comes to the new conclusion that Barton is either cheating or sold her soul for card-playing skills, for she and Toni clean out Brooke and Romanov even more rapidly than the first game. Toni rapidly cheers up at her new prospects, while Romanov looks slightly disappointed—though, to be perfectly honest, Brooke isn’t sure his facial expression has changed since they arrived.  
  
“Guess tonight’s just not your night, darlin’,” Toni says as she pats Brooke on the shoulder comfortingly. “I stand by my original statement, though, this game is crap. Who’s up for darts?”  
  
“I thought you didn’t _like_ to lose, Stark.” Claire says, eyebrows raised.

“I could totally take you,” Toni scoffs, “Darts is a whole different ballgame from archery, honey.”  
  
Romanov and Barton exchange a look, and Brooke wonders how Toni can manage to be at once so smart and so blissfully idiotic.  
  
She doesn’t feel like showing off her spectacular lack of aim, so Brooke slips out into the penthouse balcony, her breath catching as it always does at the sight of the skyline from here. There’s a fair breeze tonight, and she enjoys the feeling of her skirt billowing around her as she leans forward against the balcony and looks out at the cars below.  
  
She gives a slight start as she sees Agent Romanov appear beside her, but her heart doesn’t race the way it did when Barton caught her off-guard. _Jesus, if I’m starting to get used to SHIELD agents pulling this crap…_  
  
“Nice view, isn’t it?” he asks, following her gaze downward, “Haven’t been out here since I closed the portal. It’s nice to be able to come back and see everything again—the way it’s supposed to be.”  
  
Brooke nods, jerks her head back towards the door of the penthouse. “Everything okay back in there?”  
  
“They seem to be entertaining themselves well enough,” he says drily. Brooke turns and watches through the window to see Toni throw her hands up in exasperation as Claire hits a bullseye while hanging upside down from a light fixture.  
  
Brooke chuckles, but doesn’t say anything in response.

The silence stretches, is awkward and uncomfortable, and Brooke finds herself wishing once again that getting to know these people didn’t always feel like skating on thin ice.    
  
“She seems to be doing a lot better,” she finally says cautiously, “Barton, I mean.”  
  
“It comes and it goes, I think,” Romanov says, “But stuff like this is good for her. She needs to be around people who aren’t SHIELD, and whatever else has happened, you two…certainly aren’t SHIELD.”  
  
There’s something in the way he says that last bit that rankles Brooke, though she can’t say why.  She wonders why he’s come out here, feels—knows—that he’s as uncomfortable around her as she is around him, if not more so. She still feels traces of guilt for how things devolved between the two of them on the Helicarrier, but tamps it down, determined not to apologize further for herself or her actions.    
  
“Are we going to have a problem, Dr. Banner?” Romanov asks abruptly.  
  
Brooke looks back up at him. “I beg your pardon?”  
  
“This all was one thing when we were thrown together without warning,” he continues, “But if Fury’s intentions are what I think they are, I believe we’re going to be working together quite a bit. And I’d rather not have problems with the people I’m working with.”  
  
“Last I checked, I wasn’t the one with the problem,” Brooke replies carefully. “And last I checked, I hadn’t made any sort of commitment to SHIELD. I don’t intend on doing so. You people kept the army off me—fine, I’m grateful for that. But please don’t mistake that for a debt.”  
  
“This isn’t about marks in a ledger,” Romanov says, gesturing out at the city with his glass, “Have you looked around the world, lately, Dr. Banner? It’s changed, in ways none of us ever thought possible. And like it or not—”  
  
“I hardly think it’s changed so much that there’s going to be an apocalypse every other week—which is what you dragged me back here for in the first place. How many more of those could there possibly be? There’s a difference between coming back here when I’m actually needed and turning into the big stick that SHEILD sics on the dregs of the world—and I won’t do it. You know Stark won’t either.”  
  
“And this isn't about SHIELD siccing anyone on anything, either,” Romanov retorts, “this is about bringing people together when the world needs them—and, as last week demonstrated, your…Other One is something the world could use on occasion.”  
  
“Oh, something you could _use_ , of course,” Brooke has to fight to keep herself from snapping, struggles to match Romanov’s neutral tone. “Have SHIELD stopped to consider that my body isn’t theirs to use, Agent Romanov? The Army thought that, those first years after the accident, and the pursuit of that idea didn’t exactly work in their favor.”  
  
Romanov looks back at her, surprised, but Brooke doesn’t lie when she says she’s always angry. That the only way for her to maintain control over the Other One is to treat it not like a dam but a river, making up her very lifeblood. She remembers, every day, the men who led her here. And right now, she doesn’t particularly have a problem with directing that memory and anger towards Romanov. Maybe it’s undeserved in this particular instance, but she’s known men like him from before she could walk, men who think their muscles and their love of guns can get them whatever they want. She knows those are the men who hold the power in this world and she’s tired, so very tired, of having to deal with them.  
  
So she won’t deny that, knowing what kind of a man Romanov is and what he’s capable of, it gives her a certain smug satisfaction to see how much she frightens him.  
  
His eyes widen at her glare, barely perceptibly, and she laughs, only a bit bitter.  
  
“But see, that right there,” she says, knowing she’s cruel for the delight she takes in this, “You twitch if I _look_ at you with even the slightest displeasure. Is it that unsettling? To know that such an unassuming woman can have so much power over you?”  
  
He looks back at her with some strange mixture of surprise and shame.  
  
“That’s not…” he stops. “That has nothing to do with it, Brooke. That’s not why I’m afraid of the Other One.”  
  
She pauses, and wonders whether or not she can believe him.  
  
“Then why?” she asks bluntly, all attempts at politeness gone, “You didn’t seem to have a problem with Torra, or even Loki—why is it that you fear me so much?”  
  
Romanov sighs as he puts down his drink. His face has a hesitant expression that Brooke recognizes all too well—debating how much information to reveal to the outside world.  
  
“I was there, in New York, that day you fought the Abomination,” he says finally, “Fury’d already assigned me to your case, wanted me to make sure Ross didn’t get his hands on you. And I saw that not only was I utterly useless in determining the outcome, one way or another, but the entirety of SHIELD and the might of the U.S. Armed Forces would be useless.”  
  
Brooke closes her eyes, briefly.  
  
“Whether or not you meant to get involved in this way, what happened to you…you became a harbinger of things to come. Of gods and monsters and immortals that we couldn’t hold a candle against. And I tried to tell Fury that, get her out of this absurd idea of the Avenger Initiative. Because I may act like some big dumb macho jackass, but I’m smart enough to know when to cut my losses and run.  
  
“But Fury wouldn’t give up on the idea,” he says, “She wouldn’t give up on you, wouldn’t give up on any of you. And…she was proven right, in the end. And I’m also smart enough to admit when I’m wrong.”  
  
Brooke’s silent, taken aback by his words. But before she can come up with an adequate response, he opens his mouth again.  
  
“On the Helicarrier you said you’d moved on, focused on helping other people,” he says at last. “ You want to focus on helping people? Think about what you can do, added to this—what all of us can do.”  
  
“I can’t believe you of all people are telling me this,” Brooke mutters, “ _You_ trust me to have control over her?”  
  
Romanov sighs. “Look, Brooke, I know we got off on the wrong foot, to say the least. But…”  
  
Nikita’s phone bleeps, and he frowns as he looks at the number shining out from the screen. “What could she possibly…Romanov,” he answers, his tone clipped. “Fury, we’re both—wait, she’s _back_? And she brought _what_?”  
  
He listens to the voice on the other end for thirty seconds, his face going from disbelieving to resigned.  
  
“Yes, yes, I’ve got it,” he says, “Yeah, they’re with me. I’ll bring them… _yes,_ I’ll make sure they’ll come.”  
  
He jams the phone back into his pocket and turns back to Brooke.  
  
“Looks like you’re gonna have to make a choice sooner rather than later, Doctor,” he says, “Torra’s come back to earth, but apparently brought a few Asguardian monsters with her through the portal. Running rampant through Iowa cornfields, ironically enough.”  
  
Brooke sighs heavily, runs a hand through her hair. Of course it would come to this, so soon. Really, she should print out Murphy’s Law and tape it above her bedroom door…  
  
“Guess we’ve all gotta suit up, then,” she says, “or, dress down, depending on who you are.”  
  
She turns briskly to walk back into the penthouse, but stops as Romanov lays a hand lightly on her arm. She stiffens slightly, turning back to face him. Even after everything he’s told her, she didn’t think that he would ever bring himself to touch her.  
  
“Doctor Banner,” he asks again, his voice soft, “Are we going to have a problem?”  
  
She forces herself to meet his gaze, wondering if she's misjudged him all along. She won’t assume anything, can’t trust him yet, not fully. He’s still too much like so many she’s known before, and she refuses to take anything he says at face value. But if she were to trust him, at least in the context of a team—well, it wouldn’t be the worst mistake she’s ever made.  
  
“No,” she says, “No, we’re good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Euchre is the card game to beat all card games, at least in the house I grew up in :P.


	3. Chapter 3

“You’ve gotta be _kidding_ me, right?” Toni asks in disbelief. Fury gives her a look that says she only wishes she was kidding. “Of all the fucking names in all the fucking— _bilgesnipes_ , seriously?”  
  
“My friends!” Torra booms out happily as she came out from behind Fury, “At last we are rejoined in glorious battle!”  
  
“I don’t know how exactly you call this ‘at last,’ Lady Shakes,” Toni says with a raised eyebrow, “It’s barely two weeks since you sent your tweaked sister back to Asgard—not that I’m not happy to see you, but I’m wondering what you’re doing back so soon. Something didn’t happen with Loki, did it?”  
  
Torra frowns at the mention of Loki.  
  
“My sister remains imprisoned in Asguard, awaiting judgement,” she says, “My father thought it…unwise for me to remain near the palace until my time had come to speak at her trial. And where better a place to spend my time then on Midgard among my valiant comrades?  
  
Brooke notices that Fury’s fingers are twitching, just noticeably, like she’s yearning for a bazooka to blow Torra’s ass out of existence.  
  
“You could have considered,” she says, her voice remarkably even, “That perhaps teleporting yourself back to Earth while running from bilgesnipes was not going to get you back in our good graces?”  
  
“I had no control over the creatures that followed me!” Torra says indignantly, “The Bifrost is a precarious instrument, not easily fixed.”  
  
Fury’s shooting daggers out of her one good eye, and Stella hastily takes Torra aside to discuss logistics.  
  
“So, you noticed that they came out with you, and then what happened…you came back to SHIELD HQ?”  
  
“Yes, that is what happened, Captain Stella,” Torra says, “the field I landed in was relatively deserted, but I knew I could not take the creatures alone. I thought it best to call upon reinforcements I knew were at my disposal.”  
  
“We’ve got a plane prepped and ready for you,” Fury says, “This should be quick and simple enough, with all six of you actually here. Get in, get out, have the plane back before morning so I can at least pretend I sleep at night—”  
  
“We’ll try not to ding the paint job on our way out, either,” Toni rolls her eyes, “Gods’ sakes, let’s just do this.”  
  
Stella and Toni are arguing strategy as they head toward the plane, and Brooke trails behind them, shaking her head. Strategy has never made much sense to her, and she doubts the Other One will care much for one plan over the other. On the plane, Romanov beats Barton into the pilot’s seat, muttering something in Russian to her as he straps himself in. Barton flips him the bird and goes back to sit between Brooke and Torra.  
  
“What was that?” Brooke asks.  
  
“Something about how spectacularly I crashed the plane the last time I flew it,” Barton says, rolling her eyes. “Tell him to try navigating through flying aliens and see what happens.”  
  
“He may just have his chance now!” Torra exclaims with a wide smile. “Bilgesnipe do not have wings, but they can leap high enough to bat down one of these flying machines, quite easily.”  
  
Brooke laughs weakly, while Barton stares at Torra in disbelief.  
  
Torra entertains them the rest of the ride with stories of the Warriors Three and Too Much Mead, and even Romanov's laughing by the end, but Brooke’s only half-paying attention, contemplative as she looks around, thinking of the battle before them. She wonders if she’ll remember any of it—her consciousness comes and goes while she’s the Other One, and its inconsistency is maddening to her. She wishes that with more control would come more memory, less pain afterwards, but knows that her physicality has never been an exact science. A pity—Brooke’s always been good at figuring out exact science.  
  
She gives herself a little shake, knowing she’s only psyching herself out. Still, she pulls Torra aside as the plane looms above the cornfields.  
  
“Torra,” she says, “I need to ask a favor of you. You’ve got control of all that lightning, right?”  
  
“Yes, of course, Lady Banner,” Torra says, “Why do you ask?”  
  
“If things turn…bad, in this fight,” Brooke says slowly, “If the Other One takes a turn for the worst, can’t control herself…I want you to zap her, okay? Bring down all the lightning you’ve got.”  
  
Torra looks aghast. “Lady Banner, I...the shock of it would kill you, at the very best!”  
  
Brooke lets out a laugh, is surprised with herself to find that it’s not bitter.  
  
“I think we’ve established that it’s going to take a lot more than a bit of electricity to kill me off,” she says with a crooked smile, “but it’ll give her a shock—hopefully enough that it’ll stun her awhile, allow her to shrink back down to normal-sized. I’m hoping it’s not gonna come to that, but doesn’t hurt to have a contingency plan, yeah?”  
  
Torra frowns.  
  
“This ‘Other One’…you speak as though she is of you, and yet not a part of you,” she says, “Are you not the same?”

“It’s…more complicated than that, Torra,” she sighs, wondering how many times she’s going to have this conversation with people before it makes sense—to them and to herself. “It’s not like a Jekyll and Hyde—it’s not like we’re entirely separate people. She was born out of—out of raw emotion, all the anger and rage I’d stored up in my life. But that’s what she is. Rawness. An untempered, primeval banshee crashing around the world. And the woman you’re talking to now is buried beneath it, gone for the count.”  
  
Torra shakes her head.  
  
“No, Lady Banner,” she says, “I fought against and alongside you in the struggle against my sister. I didn’t see some wild creature then, I saw you. More unbridled, perhaps, but you are still yourself in your other form. Do you not trust yourself?”  
  
Brooke bites her lip, a habit she thought she’d kicked long ago.  
  
“I’d like to,” she says honestly, “I trust myself here, now, as long as I can _think_. I trust that I can control when to let her loose now, but when she is loose…my mind can’t process the way it’s supposed to. So no, I can’t trust her yet. Even now.”  
  
“A warrior should always trust herself when she enters into a battle,” Torra responds, “you seemed to when last we fought, why do you not now?”  
  
“That was different,” Brooke says, “This…this is all new to me, Torra. Two weeks ago I never would have even dreamed of thinking of the Other One as an asset, as a weapon rather than just a blanket force of destruction. Fighting those Chitauri was the first time I’d ever done a truly controlled transformation, really. And…”  
  
She stops. Torra looks at her expectantly.  
  
“It’s one thing when she breaks free in a moment of panic or rage, when it’s out of my control,” she finishes at last, “It’s another…it’s another to willingly, voluntarily expose her. It’s exhilarating, in a way, but I’m still not quite sure myself what she’s—what we’re capable of. I don’t think that whole combo is quite warrior material.”  
  
“Believe me, my friend,” Torra grins, clapping Brooke on the shoulder, “Whatever else I may be, I am a good judge of a warrior. And you have the mettle of ten thousand of them, in this form as much as in your other form. She defended all of us, in our last great battle. I am sure she will do so again.”  
  
Brooke sighs again. “I know, Torra. Just…contingency plan, remember? _If_ something goes wrong…you’ll stop her for me?”  
  
Torra gives her a long look, her expression a cross between admiration and pity.  
  
“Aye, then,” she says solemly, “If it will ease your heart.”  
  
Brooke nods gratefully.  
  
“Now come. The more we talk, the more destruction these bilgesnipes will wreak!”  
  
Brooke gives a small smile, shaking her head as she follows Torra out of the plane. The wind billows around them as the plane lands, and Barton swears under her breath as she catches sight of the bilgesnipes barreling through the cornfields.  
  
“You call this one a party too, Stark?” Romanov asks as the creatures slowly circle the plane.  
  
Toni cocks her head. “Day out at the petting zoo?”  
  
In the ten seconds she has before the fight, Brooke glances at Torra swinging Mjolnir and thinks on her words. She knows her relationship with the Other One is less a battle and more of a tenuous coexistence, but she hasn’t fully probed what could mean. Now, though, she wonders, with more than a bit of curiosity, what she could be capable of if she pushed this further.  
  
 _Let me in on this one, all right? Even just a little bit?_ She asks the Other One silently, feeling slightly foolish, wondering if she comprehends. _Let’s see what we can do._  
  
She closes her eyes, turns away from the rest, and gives herself into the storm.


	4. Chapter 4

Brooke is nearly always alone when she comes back to herself, and never in a comfortable place. After the first few months, she got to the point where she counted a cornfield as cozy. She’s grown to feel a profound sense of relief whenever she wakes up alone—no one to gawk at the half-naked woman lying abandoned in the middle of nowhere, or worse. She’s learned not to count on the kindness of strangers, and though coming off of the Hulk feels worse than a bad hangover, she’s learned to take the added discomfort of waking up in the rubble of an abandoned building as par for the course.     
  
Which is why when she wakes up buried under soft silk sheets, dusky light streaming in through the window, her first, drowsy thought is that she’s been kidnapped by the aliens and this is their way of making sure she doesn’t lose it.  
  
She turns her head to rest against the pillow, wondering where she is before she recognizes the room that’s been set aside for her in Stark Tower. She sleepily registers Toni sprawled in a chair across the room, her feet propped up on the table, flipping through various screens that have been pulled up around her. Her hair’s pulled back loosely, and she’s mouthing what look like Nirvana lyrics as she scribbles something onto a notepad. She looks up as Brooke props herself up on an elbow to watch her.  
  
“Finally awake, are we?” she asks, “You’ve slept through the best work of the day, Lazy Green, I’m halfway to the end of that project we started yesterday. Going to have to some serious catching up if you want your name on the patent at all.”  
  
Brooke smiles a little and sinks back into the mountain of pillows.

“We won, I take it?” she murmurs groggily. She tries to dredge up memories of the battle, but all she’s got, still, are flashes and bits of information from the Other One, mostly centering on the joy of treating bilgesnipes like soccer balls. She dimly registers the failure of her grand Cognition Experiment, but she’s still too out of it to care one way or the other…  
  
“After a fashion, yeah,” Toni says, “Everyone at SHIELD’s still pretty pissed at Torra, but since when does Fury not have her panties in a twist? And hell, you seemed like you were actually enjoying yourself.”  She waves a hand and the screens around her fly off to the side. She pulls her legs up off the table and catapults herself to her feet.    
  
“You want tea?” she asks, “I’ve got you pegged for more of a tea person than a coffee one. That herbal crap, right? I had JARVIS heat up some chamomile-mint combo a little while ago, but you’ve been asleep for so long it’s probably cold by now. I can have him heat it up again if you want…”  
  
Brooke blinks.  
  
“Um…sure,” she replies, “yeah, that’d be great, Toni. Thanks.”  
  
Toni disappears into the kitchenette and Brooke forces herself to sit up, her mind clouding a little as she shakes off the tiredness. She’s still not sure what to make of all of this—waking up to such comfort, the purple pajamas that she definitely wasn’t wearing she Hulked out, Toni wasting her time waiting around for her…  
  
“Toni, I really appreciate all of this, but you really don’t need to do it,” Brooke says as Toni comes back out with the tea, “it’s got to be such a hassle, and I can’t imagine what—”  
  
But Toni holds up a hand as she rolls her eyes.  
  
“ _Big Green catch Shiny Suit,_ ” she says in a mock Hulk voice, pointing first at Brooke and then herself. “I owe you one, kid.”  
  
Brooke quirks an eyebrow at the “kid”—she can’t be more than a couple of years younger than Toni—but takes the tea from her gratefully, buries her face in the steam.  
  
 _This is nice,_ she thinks blissfully, and smiles as she inhales the scent of the tea. She leans back lazily, allowing herself, against her better judgment, to let her guard down. This feels good, it feels _safe…_  
  
She looks up to see Toni watching her shrewdly.  
  
“Been awhile since you’ve had anyone to take care of you, hasn’t it?” she asks, all traces of nonchalance gone.  
  
Brooke shifts under Toni’s gaze as she puts the tea down on the bedside table. She draws her knees up, childlike, to her chest as she leans back against the headboard.  
  
“A little while, yeah,” she says with a soft smile. She thinks back over her life, wonders if there has ever been a time that she’s really felt cared for. The Other One’s been a part of her for nearly a decade now, and before that…  
  
“I mean, there was a guy who would have, if I’d let him,” she says slowly, thinking of Bobby, “But I hurt him, that first time in the accident, and even after New York I couldn’t…”  
  
She hears her own voice, thick with emotion, and stops, swallowing heavily. She’s suddenly very intent on the stray thread that’s poking out of the comforter, but she feels the mattress bend as Toni climbs onto the bed beside her.  
  
“Hey, Brooke,” she reaches and brushes a stray lock of hair out of Brooke’s face. “Listen for a sec. I don’t do the stupid ‘girl talk’ thing, never learned how, but here…this is me, okay? No sparky sticks, no performance, no jokes—at least, as much as I can restrain myself. Just me.  
  
“And kid, you don’t need to talk,” she continues, “God knows any psychiatrist in the world would have a _field_ day with me, only I’d never let ‘em see me sweat. But…you can, if you want to.”

Brooke sighs, feels foolish as her throat tightens. She knows, deep down, that more than anything it was that second loss of Bobby that pushed her over the edge. To have seen him again, to have had those days with him only to be forced on the run from it all—that was what had started her down the road that ended with a gun to her head. In her worst moments of self-pity, after failing and trying and failing to gain control over the Other One, she was faced with knowledge that even if she could win these battles, she could never stay with the man who had helped to put her back together again. She brought nothing but hurt to the people she loved, so what then had been _point_ of all the fighting and pain…

She can hardly admit these things to herself, even now, and would fight a thousand more bilgesnipes before she admitted them to Toni. But she moved past feeling sorry for herself a long time ago. She’s learned to accept herself, accept her life, and make the most of the cards she’d been dealt. She’d fought hard for that equilibrium, and would fight still harder to keep it.

So…she can talk about Bobby. Maybe it would be good for her to talk about Bobby.

“He was the only guy who ever loved all of me. Who loved me as a whole.” She sees Toni looking at her inquisitively, and tries to elaborate. “He loved me as a woman, but he loved me as a scientist, too, you know? Which was weird at first. No one in the field had ever looked at me as anything other than one of them—a colleague, a rival, but nothing more. He wasn’t intimidated by the fact that I was smarter than him, that I was the only reason his father brought him onto the project. He valued it, even. Think he liked the feeling that there was always something new he could learn from me.”

Toni raises her eyebrows, whistles softly.

“That’s a keeper, right there,” she says, “There’s a reason I structured my shit top-down—I had no patience for any of the asinine pricks who couldn’t handle a little girl playing in their ballpark. And Pete’s…well, Pete’s perfectly content to just smile and nod at robotics.”

Brooke snorts. The only time she’s ever seen Peter Potts in the lab he had a look that ranged somewhere between shock, exasperation, and awe. One would have thought he’d gotten used to it by now.

Toni runs her hand lightly over Brooke’s shoulder as she gives her a sidelong glance.

“So…when are you gonna leave on the quest to reunite lost lovers? You’ve got a handle on the thing by now, there’s no reason why you can’t try.”

Brooke shakes her head ruefully.

“I’m not going after him, Toni,” she says, “We’re ships in the night, there’s nothing for it. Don’t think I haven’t considered it, but—he’s moved on. Engaged, last I checked. I _wanted_ him to move on, wrote him and told him that. I’ve gotta do the same, don’t you think? And even now, after everything, I can’t…I don’t know how to be around people without hurting them. That’s not what he needs. Hell, it’s not what SHIELD needs, it’s not what any of you...”

“Do you want to know how many people I’ve hurt in my life, Brooke?” Toni asks with a twisted smile, “Do you _really_ want to go down that road with me? Even with the suit, it’s a goddamn miracle anyone bothers to stick around me. It took…a long time for me to work out all the kinks of this thing.” She drums her fingers lightly against the arc reactor. “A long time. And it nearly cost me Pete.”

“That’s different,” Brooke replies, “You think I’ve got a handle on her, but…I still can’t remember anything that goes on when she’s exposed. I keep trying, trying to find ways to merge with her, but it’s not…”

“Brooke, you’re mended, but you’re not whole yet,” Toni says matter-of-factly. “Anyone can see that. Figuring this shit out isn’t some smooth path. And I know it doesn’t help that the Freaks and Geeks Initiative seems to expect you to have all the answers.”

She keeps stroking Brooke’s hair, almost absently, as though she doesn’t realize she’s still doing it. Brooke’s not used to this kind of touch—simple, instinctive affection, nothing more—but she leans back, hesitantly, against Toni, and allows herself the pleasant sensation of being treated like a cat.

“If you need to go off again, figure this shit out on your own, none of us are gonna stop you,” Toni says, “At least, I’m not, and I’ll make damn sure SHIELD doesn’t either. But…I think you need people, right about now. Let us take care of you, me and Petey. It’s been awhile since I’ve given him a new toy, anyway.”  
  
“I’m a bit big for a toy,” Brooke murmurs with a smile, “and didn’t your mother ever teach you not to bring in strays?”  
  
“Oh Brooke, honey, that ship sailed the moment you brought your shiny, brilliant brain into my presence,” Tony smirks. “Seriously, though, if you’re going to keep on Hulking on command you’ve gotta start compensating for how much it takes out of you. You like manicures? Have you ever actually had close encounters with nail polish? Or a movie night—Rogers is so hopelessly inept she needs _someone_ to re-orient her into this century. And, y’know, JARVIS just put in an order for a hot tub in the penthouse…”

Brooke’s never been the touchy-feely type, even before the accident, but she cuts Toni off now with a brief, fierce hug, hoping it conveys what she can’t put into words. She doesn’t know if she’s going to stay here, doesn’t know if she can rely on the protection of Stark Tower, but Toni…she knows now that she can rely on Toni. And it’s been a long, long time since she’s felt like she can rely on anyone.

“Give us a chance, though, won’t you?” Toni asks, her voice muffled in Brooke’s hair, “Because I don’t think Fury is giving up on this superhero slumber party now. And damnit, Brooke, if I have to deal with  SHIELD on a regular basis I am taking you down with me.” 


	5. Chapter 5

In the lab the next day, Toni announces that she’s leaving for California for a couple days, to take care of company business with Peter. She invites Brooke to come along with them, to see her house in Malibu and enjoy the sun, but Brooke politely declines. As tempting as a SoCal beach house will always sound, she’s still warming up to the idea of being _settled_ somewhere, and she doesn’t want to quit while she’s ahead. She wants to keep giving New York and Stark Tower a chance, wondering if it’s a place that she can call home. Besides, most of the lab work she’s started can’t go cross-county, and how fair would it be of Tony to offer her all of this just to take it all away?  
  
Toni throws a dirty rag at her and calls her a workaholic affectionately, but departs with a knowing grin and a reminder to “Seriously, drink all the booze in the penthouse bar. I promise you the Tower’s infrastructure can handle a drunk Hulk.”  
  
With Toni gone, Brooke half-expects SHIELD agents to come creeping by, harrassing her for an official de-brief at the very least, but the only official correspondence she encounters is a text from Hawkeye complaining about Torra, and the only other people she runs into in the Tower are the construction crews still putting on finishing touches.  
  
She finds herself enjoying the solitude of the lab, getting to know JARVIS a bit better and acclimating herself to Dummy’s idiosyncrasies. She takes advantage of having full control of the stereo system. She has a healthy appreciation for heavy metal, but enjoys the chance to experiment with her own playlist—by the end of the second day, she’s put together an eclectic mixture of Aaron Copland, Patti Smith, and Wu-Tang Clan. JARVIS throws in a couple of suggestions to tie in all three, and Brooke finds herself liking the AI more and more. She cranks up the music at full volume, and though JARVIS makes a pointed comment about the pot calling the kettle black she ignores him—at this point she’s not really expecting to have any visitors.  
  
So when Stella Rogers walks in on her in the lab rocking out to Peaches, it’s hard to say which of them is more surprised.  
  
“Erm…What can I do for you, Captain?” she asks, pushing her glasses back onto her forehead.  
  
“Well, I’ve actually been trying to call you on your cell phone,” Stella says, “but I must not have the hang of mine yet, because I haven’t been able to get through to you at all. Figured I’d just come down in person, since I can’t seem to get the thing to work.”  
  
“Are you sure it was…? Ah, damn…” Brooke swears as she reaches into her back pocket. Four missed calls. _Brilliant, Banner…_  
  
“Okay, it was nothing you did, Stella,” Brooke says, “I’ve always had a godawful habit of leaving my phone on silent. You’d think I’d have kicked it now that I’m on call for alien invasions…”  
  
“No, don’t worry about it,” Stella says, looking oddly relieved, “I’m just glad it wasn’t something I messed up with the phones, again.”  
  
Brooke nods. “Well, I hope I didn’t drag you all the way over here for nothing. What’s up?”  
  
“Well, it’s nothing particularly important,” Stella says, “But since I’m here, I just wondered..would you maybe want to go grab lunch sometime?”  
  
Brooke raises her eyebrows in mild surprise, but shrugs and nods. “Yeah, of course, Stella. You got a particular time in mind?”  
  
“No time like the present?” Stella counters with a shy smile, “No offense, but it looks like you haven’t seen the sun since Stark took off for the West Coast.”  
  
“Hey, she wasn’t kidding when she said this place was like Candyland for me,” Brooke chuckles, but stops at the blank look on Stella’s face. “It’s been…fun. A lotta fun.”  
  
As they leave Stark Tower Brooke waits for Stella to throw out lunch suggestions, but Stella’s silent, almost pensive, on the elevator ride down. Brooke tries to remember what good restaurants are in the area—she knows if they’re willing to walk across town Hell’s Kitchen isn’t so far. And besides…  
  
“You ever tried sushi, Stella?” she asks.  
  
Stella blinks. “Sushi’s the stuff with raw fish, right?” Brooke nods.  
  
Stella shakes her head. “Growing up, we didn’t have nearly the same access to international food the way everyone now seems to, even if we were in the big city. Especially during the Depression, and then the war, rationing…no one was eating much of any seafood.”  
  
“Okay, we’ve got to change this,” Brooke says, “The food variety here is what makes New York worth living in.”  
  
Stella gives a bemused chuckle, and defers to Brooke’s lead as they wander down the street. They make it practically to Koreatown before Brooke finds someplace that she thinks will suit their needs, and takes the lead from Stella as the waitress leads them to their seats. Brooke tries to make small talk, but it’s never been one of her strengths, and Stella looks strangely uncomfortable.  
  
“So…you still staying in that apartment SHIELD staked out for you?”  
  
“Huh? Oh, oh yeah, I am,” Stella says. “Thinking of maybe moving back out to Brooklyn, though…I know it’s changed, a lot, but it might be nice to be somewhere close to home. Or what used to be home.”  
  
Brooke nods.  
  
“You know,” she muses, “I’m sure Toni’d be willing to let you stay in Stark Tower too, if you wanted. Far less of a liability than I am, and you’d probably speed up her campaign to make the Tower a historical landmark.”  
  
Stella wrinkles her nose, shakes her head. “Thanks for the offer, Doctor, but…I think Director Fury might have a thing or two to say about that. I’m not quite sure, but I _think_ I want to stay in her good graces. And there’s…” she trails off.  
  
“There’s…” Brooke supplies.  
  
“I think it’d be weird for her, having me around all the time. I remind her of her mother, and for whatever reason, that doesn’t seem to be something she really wants to be reminded of.”    
  
Brooke purses her lips thoughtfully. It didn’t take a genius to zero in on Toni’s mommy issues, and she knows Stella and Hannah Stark had been friends during the war.  
  
“You know,” Stella continues, “Even for me, it’s…still really strange sometimes, even after everything that’s happened, to see Toni walking and talking. She’s the spitting image of Hannah in some ways.”  
  
“I didn’t realize the two of you were that close,” Brooke says.    
  
“I came onto the project, this wide-eyed gal who didn’t know a damn thing, and here’s this crazy wild-haired female mechanic zooming around the lab and barking orders to any poor sap who crosses her path,” Stella reflects, “Hannah took me under her wing, made sure I knew the ropes. You know, I don’t think we ever would have been friends had it not been for the war, but…she knew we were both anomalies. We could both take care of ourselves perfectly well, but…What’s that phrase I keep hearing now? Women helping women?”  
  
Brooke snorts. “Never really had much experience of that in my life. But…yeah. It’s a good thing to think about. Especially with us.” She raises her eyebrows pointedly at Stella.  
  
They settle up the bill, and Brooke steps into the bathroom before they leave. When she walks back, she notices Stella absently doodling on a notepad. She stops, looks a bit closer. She remembers her doing the same thing they night they got shawarma.  
  
“Hey, that’s pretty good,” she says. She squints a bit closer. “Is that supposed to be me?”  
  
Stella blushes, closes the notepad hastily.  
  
“No…no, let me see again, I like it,” Brooke says. Stella hands over the notepad. Brooke leans over to see the drawing. Her likeness is wearing the skirt she bought in SoHo, staring out with a thoughtful expression. Instead of her shadow behind her, however, it’s a silhouette of the Other One.  
  
“I’m just trying something new,” Stella says hastily, “trying to mix in all our different alter egos, and…”  
  
“Stella,” Brooke stops her. “I like it. Really, I do.”  
  
Stella looks down with a surprised smile, and Brooke laughs to herself. As they walk out of the restaurant she watches Stella out of the corner of her eye. Before today she’s only spent time with her in official capacities, and in those Stella usually conveys the composed confidence you’d expect out of Captain America. Today, though, she catches Stella looking rather like Brooke remembers feeling in her first weeks at Caltech—alone, uncertain, entirely out of her element. It was never until she buried herself in her labwork that Brooke had ever felt like she’d found a sure footing…

Brooke pauses. She has a sudden idea.  
  
“Stella, have you been to the MOMA yet?” she asks.  
  
Stella shakes her head. “I’ve been meaning to for awhile now, but things have been so crazy I…haven’t gotten the chance.”  
  
“No time like the present,” Brooke echoes back at her with a grin, “just wait until you see the Jackson Pollocks. You’ve missed out on some mad artistic innovations over the years.”  
  
At the museum Brooke gets a map, but gives Stella free reign, merely pointing out the locations of everything that’s been produced since 1945. Stella wanders through the museum, eyes widening at each new artist, looking truly happy for the first time since Brooke met her.  
  
The hours wane on and Brooke is bored nearly to tears, laughs at herself for having dug herself into this trap. She’s tried to garner an appreciation for art over the years, but the instinctive love’s never been there, the way it clearly is for Stella. She tries to understand the abstract postmodernism that populates the new wings of the MOMA, but Pollock’s always struck her as a pretentious turd, and the rest…well, a couple of steps down, at best. All she wants is to retreat back to the Impressionist wing, to Van Gogh and Monet and those more of her tastes, but she knows Stella’s seen those before, and, well, they can always come back.  
  
“You don’t like them,” Stella says as they walk out of the Pollock wing.  
  
“What? No, I do! I do, they’re very…” she trails off as she sees Stella’s smile widen. “Never would have come here if not for you, Cap. You like it, though?”  
  
“I think they’re wonderful,” she proclaims, grinning broadly, “this stuff he’s doing with the paint, and the color, and they’re not even about anything, but you can just tell…”  
  
Brooke smiles and shakes her head, resigning herself to the fact that Stella’s not going to rest until she’s gone through the entire museum, and rejoices at last when they finally make it to the Impressionist wing. Here, she pauses for much longer before each painting, taking in the beauty of Monet’s lily pads and Cezanne’s landscapes.  
  
“Who’s your favorite artist, Brooke?” Stella asks as they come before Starry Night.  
  
“This guy, actually,” Brooke laughs, gesturing to Van Gogh’s name on the plate. “Cliche, I know, and my aunt would lose it at the very notion...”  
  
“Oh?” Stella raises an inquiring eyebrow.  
  
“When I was nine, about a year after my mom died, my aunt took me on a trip to Chicago,” Brooke explains, voice softening at the memory. “She’d never really had the money for travel, but I think she wanted to try and…anyway, she took me to the Art Institute, dragged me through all of the exhibits even though I spent the whole day whining about how bored I was and that I wanted to go back to the Field Museum to see the dinosaurs. But there’s this special Van Gogh exhibit, where they’ve brought together all of his most famous paintings from museums all over the world. And they had both the Starry Nights—this one and Starry Night on the Rhone. The little brochure we got had a paragraph comparing the two, talking about how the second Starry Night was far more famous and renowned than the first one. And I could not understand for the _life_ of me why everyone liked this Starry Night so much more.”  
  
“You liked Starry Night on the Rhone better?” Stella asks, “Why?”  
  
Brooke snorts. “I was a scientist kid even back then,” she answers, “I wanted clarity, I wanted things to make sense, and the Rhone one…the stars are smaller, it looks more ‘real,’ however a nine-year-old defines that. And I didn’t get why everyone was so fussed about a painting where the stars didn’t even look like real stars.”  
  
“Serious kid,” Stella says with a teasing smile.  
  
“Yeah,” Brooke murmurs absently, “Yeah, a bit.”  
  
She stares at the painting, lost in the memory. Thoughts of her childhood don’t bring her much pain these days—those wounds turned to scars long ago, buried deep beneath all that had come with the Other One—but she sighs, thinking back on that stubborn little girl, who’d wanted nothing but normalcy out of chaos. And she wonders, truly, if there ever is such a thing.  
  
Stella touches her shoulder lightly.  
  
“What about now?” she asks, “Still like the Rhone one better?”  
  
Brooke looks back at the swirling canvas, the absurd tower off to the side and the converging blues.  
  
“Nah,” she says, “This one…he got it better with this one. It’s chaotic, it doesn’t make sense, but…it’s beautiful. And heck, these days, chaos…chaos makes more sense in this world. Somehow.”  
  
Stella folds her arms and gives Brooke a mock-stern glare.  
  
“Okay, rage monster,” she teases, “all about the chaos—explain to me then how you can’t stand Pollock.”  
  
Brooke grins. It’s a sign of how far Stella’s come that she’s comfortable joking about the Hulk now. Maybe there’s hope for the Cap to thaw after all.  
  
“Okay, come on, you don’t know anything about Pollock, he was a dipshit,” Brooke says, “And besides, anyone can throw paint at a wall, it doesn’t make it art…”  
  
They argue about abstract art all the way back to the subway station, where Brooke turns towards Stark Tower and Stella turns uptown toward her apartment with a little wave. Brooke watches her go, and she wonders back at the little girl she’d been so long ago. She’d always looked up to Captain America when she was a kid, had stowed her comics alongside Wonder Woman and Catwoman in her cache of female superheroes. Even as she’d grown up and tossed them all out amid teenage tirades of oversexualization and nerdboy fetishes, she’d somehow always kept the Captain America ones tucked away, irrationally determined to believe there was more to her than the rest of them. For unlike the rest, she had been real—had struggled and fought and lived in this world before the ice took her. And that had been something even a broken fifteen-year-old could hold on to.  
  
And yes, she’d had superheroes in the back of her mind when she’d first started working for the military on gamma radiation, had considered the implications and wondered at the possibility. Then the Other One had come and the possibility became more of an ironic curse, but it had been a nice pipe dream while it lasted.

Yet here she finds herself now, among the likes of Stella Rogers. Heroes who are just as lost as she is, who have strange obsessions with nail polish, who have terrible opinions about art. Who strangely, inexplicably, think Brooke has something of value to give to them.

So maybe, just maybe, there’s a place for her here after all. At the very least, it’s a nice thought to keep around. 


End file.
